The Holywood man, who was paralysed at 35, made the amazing breakthrough with the help of a team of scientists at UCLA, California.

The new approach combines a battery-powered wearable bionic suit that enables people to move their legs in small steps.

The remarkable achievement was made after five days of training and was helped by a novel electrical spinal stimulation technique directed at the spinal cord.

UCLA scientists reported that Mark, who lost his sight at 22, was able to ‘voluntarily control his leg muscles and take thousands of steps in a ‘robotic exoskeleton’ device during five days of training, and for two weeks afterwards’.

In 2010, he fell from a second-story window and suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Mark Pollock is the first person with complete paralysis to regain enough voluntary control to move with an exoskeleton

“In the last few weeks of the trial, my heart rate hit 138 beats per minute,” Pollock said.

“This is an aerobic training zone, a rate I haven’t even come close to since being paralyzed while walking in the robot alone, without these interventions.”

Now 39, the former athlete has become the first person with chronic, complete paralysis to regain enough voluntary control to move with a robotic exoskeleton.

At UCLA, Pollock made remarkable progress after receiving a few weeks of physical training without spinal stimulation.

Mark Pollock using exoskeleton to move

Following this training, the data showed that Pollock was actively flexing his left knee and raising his left leg.

During and after the electrical stimulation, he was able to voluntarily assist the robot during stepping; it wasn’t just the robotic device doing the work.

“That was a very exciting, emotional moment for me, having spent my whole adult life before breaking my back as an athlete,” he said.

Even in the years since he lost his sight, Pollock has competed in ultra-endurance races across deserts, mountains and the polar ice caps and became the first blind man to race to the South Pole.

Mark Pollock has complete paralysis

He also won silver and bronze medals in rowing at the Commonwealth Games and launched a motivational speaking business.

“Stepping with the stimulation and having my heart rate increase, along with the awareness of my legs under me, was addictive. I wanted more,” he said.

The procedure used a robotic device manufactured by Richmond, California-based Ekso Bionics which captures data that enables the research team to determine how much the subject is moving his own limbs, as opposed to being aided by the device.

“If the robot does all the work, the subject becomes passive and the nervous system shuts down,” said Dr Reggie Edgerton, senior author of the research.

Researchers don’t describe the leg movements as walking because ‘no one who is completely paralysed has independently walked in the absence of the robotic device and electrical stimulation of the spinal cord.’